Found

I stopped into Find this afternoon, the new vintage/consignment/clothing-exchange shop at 16 Free Street (where Arabica used to be). Owner Laura Ker, a Waterville native who returned to Maine last April after sojourns in New York and New Mexico, has set things up beautifully -- tons of denim, plus shirts, sweaters, jackets, and shoes for men and women (more stuff for girls than guys right now, but she plans to expand the male section soon). There's also a pegboard of purses and a table of accessories. The store's interior, like its logo, is streamlined and simple -- no Goodwill-esque chaos here. To complete the vintage vibe, Ker set up a functional Ms Pac-Man game in one corner, to keep non-shopper spouses or children happily occupied.

Ker -- a former Pilates instructor who studied textiles at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, and had a successful vintage eBay operation going before she decided to go brick-and-mortar -- is accepting clothes in exchange for cash or store credit. Everything is washed (at a local laundromat) before it's displayed, and there's a color-coded discount every day.

And yes, I walked out $16 poorer, but one pair of charcoal skinny-leg Levi's richer.